Raining animals
Encyclopedia
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
phenomenon in which flightless animals "rain" from the sky. Such occurrences have been reported from many countries throughout history. One hypothesis offered to explain this phenomenon is that strong winds traveling over water sometimes pick up creatures such as fish or frogs, and carry them for up to several miles. However, this primary aspect of the phenomenon has never been witnessed or scientifically tested.
Sometimes the animals survive the fall, suggesting the animals are dropped shortly after extraction. Several witnesses of raining frogs describe the animals as startled, though healthy, and exhibiting relatively normal behavior shortly after the event. In some incidents, however, the animals are frozen to death or even completely encased in ice. There are examples where the product of the rain is not intact animals, but shredded body parts. Some cases occur just after storms having strong winds, especially during tornadoes.
However, there have been many unconfirmed cases in which rainfalls of animals have occurred in fair weather and in the absence of strong winds or waterspouts.
Rains of animals (as well as rains of blood
Blood rain
Blood rain or red rain is a phenomenon in which blood is perceived to fall from the sky in the form of rain. Cases have been recorded since Homer's Iliad, composed ca eighth century BC, and are widespread. Before the 17th century it was generally believed that the rain was actually blood...
or blood-like material, and similar anomalies) play a central role in the epistemological writing of Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
, especially in his first book, The Book of the Damned
The Book of the Damned
The Book of the Damned was the first published nonfiction work of the author Charles Fort . Dealing with various types of anomalous phenomena including UFOs, strange falls of both organic and inorganic materials from the sky, odd weather patterns, the possible existence of creatures generally held...
. Fort collected stories of these events and used them both as evidence and as a metaphor in challenging the claims of scientific explanation.
The English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
idiom "it is raining cats and dogs", referring to a heavy downpour, is of uncertain etymology, and there is no evidence that it has any connection to the "raining animals" phenomenon.
Note that this is a regular occurrence for birds, which can get killed in flight, or stunned, and then fall (unlike flightless creatures, which first have to be lifted into the air by an outside force). Sometimes this happens in large groups, for instance, the blackbirds
Red-winged Blackbird
The Red-winged Blackbird is a passerine bird of the family Icteridae found in most of North and much of Central America. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, and Guatemala, with isolated populations in western El Salvador, northwestern Honduras, and...
falling from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas
Beebe, Arkansas
Beebe, Arkansas is a city in White County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 4,930 at the 2000 census, making it the second most populous in the county after Searcy. The city is home to a branch campus of Jonesboro-based Arkansas State University. It was named for Roswell Beebe, a...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on December 31, 2010. It is common for birds to become disoriented (for example, because of bad weather or fireworks) and collide with objects such as trees or buildings, killing them or stunning them into falling to death. The number of blackbirds killed in Beebe is not spectacular considering the size of their congregations, which can be in the millions. The event in Beebe, however, captured the imagination and lead to more reports in the media of birds falling from the sky across the globe, such as in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, though many scientists claim such mass deaths are common occurrences but usually go unnoticed.
Explanations
André-Marie Ampère
André-Marie Ampère was a French physicist and mathematician who is generally regarded as one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism. The SI unit of measurement of electric current, the ampere, is named after him....
was among the first scientists to take seriously accounts of raining animals. He tried to explain rains of frogs with a hypothesis that was eventually refined by other scientists. Speaking in front of the Society of Natural Sciences, Ampère suggested that at times frogs and toads roam the countryside in large numbers, and that the action of violent winds can pick them up and carry them great distances.
More recently, a scientific explanation for the phenomenon has been developed that involves tornadic waterspouts. Waterspouts are capable of capturing objects and animals and lifting them into the air. Under this theory, waterspouts or tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
s transport animals to relatively high altitudes, carrying them over large distances. The winds are capable of carrying the animals over a relatively wide area and allow them to fall in a concentrated fashion in a localized area. More specifically, some tornadoes can completely suck up a pond, letting the water and animals fall some distance away in the form of a rain of animals.
This hypothesis appears supported by the type of animals in these rains: small and light, usually aquatic. It is also supported by the fact that the rain of animals is often preceded by a storm. However the theory does not account for how all the animals involved in each individual incident would be from only one species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
, and not a group of similarly-sized animals from a single area.
Mesocyclone
A mesocyclone is a vortex of air, approximately 2 to 10 miles in diameter , within a convective storm....
associated with a tornado (in green). These events may occur easily with birds in flight. In contrast, it is harder to find a plausible explanation for rains of terrestrial animals; the enigma persists despite scientific studies.
Sometimes, scientists have been incredulous of extraordinary claims of rains of fish. For example, in the case of a rain of fish in Singapore in 1861, French naturalist Francis de Laporte de Castelnau
François Louis de la Porte, comte de Castelnau
François Louis Nompar de Caumont LaPorte, comte de Castelnau was a French naturalist, known also as François Laporte or Francis de Castelnau.-Life:Born in London, he studied natural history in Paris...
explained that the supposed rain took place during a migration of walking catfish
Walking catfish
The walking catfish, Clarias batrachus, is a species of freshwater airbreathing catfish found primarily in Southeast Asia, so named for its ability to "walk" across dry land, to find food or suitable environments...
, which are capable of dragging themselves over the land from one puddle to another. Thus, he argued that the appearance of fish on the ground immediately after a rain was easily explained, as these animals usually move over soft ground or after a rain.
Fish
- SingaporeSingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, February 22, 1861 - Olneyville, Rhode Island, May 15, 1900
- Marksville, LouisianaMarksville, LouisianaMarksville is a city in and the parish seat of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,537 at the 2000 census. Louisiana's first land-based casino, Paragon Casino Resort, opened in Marksville in June 1994...
, October 23, 1947 - Bhanwad, JamnagarJamnagarJamnagar is a city and a municipal corporation in Jamnagar district in the Indian state of Gujarat. The city was built up substantially by Maharaja Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji in the 1920s, when the district was known as Nawanagar. The district lies just to the south of the Gulf of Kutch and is...
, IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Oct 24, 2009
- Lajamanu, Northern Territory, Australia, February 25 and 26, 2010,
Frogs and toads
- Ishikawa PrefectureIshikawa Prefectureis a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is Kanazawa.- History :Ishikawa was formed from the merger of Kaga Province and the smaller Noto Province.- Geography :Ishikawa is on the Sea of Japan coast...
, JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, June 2009 (Occurrences reported throughout the month) - RákóczifalvaRákóczifalvaRákóczifalva is a town in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county, in the Northern Great Plain region of central Hungary.-Geography:It covers an area of and has a population of 5571 people ....
, HungaryHungaryHungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, 18–20 June 2010 (two times)
Others
- An unidentified animal (thought to be a cow) fell in California ripped to tiny pieces on August 1, 1869; a similar incident was reported in Olympian Springs, Bath County, KentuckyBath County, KentuckyBath County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It was formed in 1811. As of 2010 the population is 11,591. Its county seat is Owingsville, Kentucky...
in 1876 - JellyfishJellyfishJellyfish are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria. Medusa is another word for jellyfish, and refers to any free-swimming jellyfish stages in the phylum Cnidaria...
fell from the sky in Bath, EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, in 1894 - WormWormThe term worm refers to an obsolete taxon used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, and stems from the Old English word wyrm. Currently it is used to describe many different distantly-related animals that typically have a long cylindrical...
s dropped from the sky in Jennings, LouisianaJennings, LouisianaJennings is a small city in and the parish seat of Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana, United States, near Lake Charles. The population was 10,986 at the 2000 census....
, on July 11, 2007. - SpiderSpiderSpiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...
s fell from the sky in Salta ProvinceSalta ProvinceSalta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy...
, ArgentinaArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
on April 6, 2007. - ScottishScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
school children are hit by worms during PE class on a cloudless day, April 1, 2011. - Orange eggs of an unknown species of invertebrate rained down on the Alaskan city of KivalinaKivalina, AlaskaKivalina is a city in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 377.-History:...
on August 4, 2011.
In literature and popular culture
- Raining animals are relatively common in Terry PratchettTerry PratchettSir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
's DiscworldDiscworldDiscworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....
. The explanation given is magical weather. One small village in the mountainous, landlocked Ramtops operates a successful fish cannery due to regular rains of fish. The Omnian religion includes several accounts of religious figures being saved by miraculous rains of animals, one being an elephant. Other items include bedsteads, coal scuttles, cake and tinned sardines. - Fish fall from the sky in Kafka on the ShoreKafka on the Shoreis a 2002 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. John Updike described it as a "real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender"...
by Haruki MurakamiHaruki Murakamiis a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize and Jerusalem Prize among others.He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature...
. - In the Red DwarfRed DwarfRed Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
episode Confidence and ParanoiaConfidence and Paranoia"Confidence and Paranoia" is the fifth episode from series one of the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf. It was first broadcast on the British television channel BBC2 on 14 March 1988...
, fish rain in Lister's sleeping quarters. - Raining frogs are shown in the 1999 New Line CinemaNew Line CinemaNew Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
movie, MagnoliaMagnolia (film)Magnolia is a 1999 American drama film written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, narrated by Ricky Jay, and starring Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, and Jason Robards in his last feature film appearance...
. Frogs rain down and cause havoc on drivers. - In the role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: OblivionThe Elder Scrolls IV: OblivionThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games...
, the player can do an optional quest given by Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness, which involves playing a prank on a small, peaceful-yet-superstitious village. The player is told to perform certain actions that will fulfill a prophecy within the village that is believed to herald the end of the world, thus causing all of the villagers to panic. The final event foretold in the prophecy is flaming dogs raining from the sky, which, unlike the other events of the prophecy, is achieved by the Daedra Lord himself and his powers. - A sperm whale and a bowl of petunias were called into existence above the alien planet Magrathea in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
by Douglas AdamsDouglas AdamsDouglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
. The whale had only moments to come to terms with its new identity and purpose during the ultimately fatal plummet to Magrathea's surface. The bowl of petunias had been in similarly terminal situations before. - The character Cris Johnson in the film Next relates as fact that fish eggs were re-hydrated after being evaporated from the ocean near Denmark, resulting in a rain of fish.
- John HodgmanJohn HodgmanJohn Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...
's satirical almanac More Information Than You RequireMore Information Than You RequireMore Information Than You Require is a 2008 satirical almanac by John Hodgman. It is the follow-up to Hodgman's 2005 book The Areas of My Expertise. It was released October 21, 2008...
makes references to multiple events involving raining animals. - The short story 'Rainy Season' by Stephen KingStephen KingStephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
from the collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes is about frogs with sharp teeth falling from the sky. - In the 2010 film, Wonderful WorldWonderful World (film)Wonderful World is a 2009 drama film directed and written by Joshua Goldin, who in this movie makes his directorial debut. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Sanaa Lathan, Michael K. Williams and Jodelle Ferland....
, Ben Singer (played by Matthew BroderickMatthew BroderickMatthew Broderick is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adult Simba in The Lion King film series, and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.He has won two Tony Awards, one in 1983 for his...
), experiences raining fish at the end of the film, while in SenegalSenegalSenegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
. His close friend Ibu had told him about the phenomenon earlier in the film. - In "Summer Knight" from The Dresden FilesThe Dresden FilesThe Dresden Files is a series of contemporary fantasy/mystery novels written by Jim Butcher.He provides a first person narrative of each story from the point of view of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in...
by Jim ButcherJim ButcherJim Butcher is a New York Times Best Selling author most known for his contemporary fantasy book series The Dresden Files. He also wrote the Codex Alera series. Butcher grew up as the only son of his parents, and has two older sisters. He currently lives in Independence with his wife, Shannon K...
, the book's first line says: "It rained toads...". - In the sixth part of JoJo's Bizarre AdventureJoJo's Bizarre Adventureis a manga written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki. Every main character's name in each part can be read as JoJo. The manga, published by Shueisha, first ran in the magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1987 to 2002, before being transferred to the seinen magazine Ultra Jump in 2004. The current story...
, a character with the power to control weather causes a rain of frogs.
"Raining cats and dogs"
The English idiom "it is raining cats and dogs", used to describe an especially heavy rain, is of unknown etymology, and is not necessarily related to the "raining animals" phenomenon. The phrase (with "polecatWeasel
Weasels are mammals forming the genus Mustela of the Mustelidae family. They are small, active predators, long and slender with short legs....
s" instead of "cats") was used at least since the 17th century. A number of improbable folk etymologies have been put forward to explain the phrase, for example:
- An "explanation" widely circulated by email claimed that in 16th-century EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
when peasantPeasantA peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
homes were commonly thatchedThatchingThatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge , rushes, or heather, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates...
, animals could crawl into the thatch and find shelter from the elements, and would fall out during heavy rain. However, there seems to be no evidence in support of either assertion. - Drainage systems on buildings in 17th century Europe were poor, and may have disgorged their contents during heavy showers, including the corpses of any animals that had accumulated in them. This occurrence is documented in Jonathan SwiftJonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's 1710 poem 'Description of a City Shower', in which he describes "Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,/Dead cats and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood." - "Cats and dogs" may be a corruption of the Greek word Katadoupoi, referring to the waterfalls on the Nile, possibly through the old French word catadupe ("waterfall").
- The Greek phrase "kata doksa", which means "contrary to expectation" is often applied to heavy rain, but there is no evidence to support the theory that it was borrowed by English speakers.
There may not be a logical explanation; the phrase may have been used just for its nonsensical humor value, like other equivalent English expressions ("it is raining pitchfork
Pitchfork
A pitchfork is an agricultural tool with a long handle and long, thin, widely separated pointed tines used to lift and pitch loose material, such as hay, leaves, grapes, dung or other agricultural materials. Pitchforks typically have two or three tines...
s", "hammer
Hammer
A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...
handles", etc.).
Other languages have equally bizarre expressions for heavy rain:
- Afrikaans: ou vrouens met knopkieries reen ("old women with clubs")
- Bengali: মুষলধারে বৃষ্টি পড়ছে musholdhare brishṭi poṛchhe ("in a stream of malletMalletA mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...
s") - Bosnian: padaju ćuskije ("crowbarCrowbar (tool)A crowbar, a wrecking bar, pry bar, or prybar, or sometimes a prise bar or prisebar, and more informally a jimmy, jimmy bar, jemmy or gooseneck is a tool consisting of a metal bar with a single curved end and flattened points, often with a small fissure on one or both ends for removing nails...
s") - Cantonese: "落狗屎" ("dog poo")
- Chinese: "倾盆大雨" ("rains that can knock over a basin")
- Catalan: Ploure a bots i barrals ("boats and barrels")
- Czech: padají trakaře ("wheelbarrowWheelbarrowA wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles to the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind. The term "wheelbarrow" is made of two words: "wheel" and "barrow." "Barrow" is a...
s") - Danish: det regner skomagerdrenge ("shoemakers' apprentices")
- Dutch: het regent pijpenstelen ("pipe stems or stair rods")
- Dutch (Flemish): het regent oude wijven ("old women")
- Dutch (Flemish): het regent kattenjongen ("kittens")
- Faroese : Tað regnar av grind ("Pilot whales")
- French: il pleut des hallebardes ("it is raining halberdHalberdA halberd is a two-handed pole weapon that came to prominent use during the 14th and 15th centuries. Possibly the word halberd comes from the German words Halm , and Barte - in modern-day German, the weapon is called Hellebarde. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on...
s"), clous ("nails"), or cordes ("ropeRopeA rope is a length of fibres, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength...
s") - German: Es regnet junge Hunde ("young dogs")
- Greek: βρέχει καρεκλοπόδαρα ("chair legs")
- Hindi: musaldhār bārish ("a stream of mallets")
- Hungarian: mintha dézsából öntenék ("like poured from a vat")
- Icelandic: Það rignir eins og hellt sé úr fötu ("like poured from a bucket")
- Irish: tá sé ag caitheamh sceana gréasaí ("cobblers knives")
- Norwegian: det regner trollkjerringer ("she-trollTrollA troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
s") - Polish: pada żabami ("frogs")
- Portuguese: está a chover canivetes ("penknivesPenknifeA penknife, or pen knife, is a small folding pocket knife, originally used for cutting or sharpening a quill to make a pen nib. Originally, penknives did not necessarily have folding blades, but resembled a scalpel or wood knife by having a short, fixed blade at the end of a long handle...
") - Portuguese: Chove a potes ("It rains the pots")
- Portuguese: Chove a cântaros ("It rains the pots")
- Portuguese (the very most popular): Está a chover como o caralho ("It's raining like hell")
- Romanian: plouă cu broaşte ("frogs")
- Russian: льет как из ведра ("from a bucket")
- Spanish: está lloviendo chuzos de punta ("shortpikesPike (weapon)A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear used extensively by infantry both for attacks on enemy foot soldiers and as a counter-measure against cavalry assaults. Unlike many similar weapons, the pike is not intended to be thrown. Pikes were used regularly in European warfare from the...
/icicles point first" - not only is it raining a lot, but it's so cold and windy that being hit by the drops hurts) - Spanish (Mexico): está lloviendo a cántaros ("by the clay potCantaroThe cantaro is a percussion instrument. It is a clay pot that is struck in its outer surface or mouth with a hand, creating different effects. Water can be used to pitch the instrument to a desired sound....
-full") - Spanish (Argentina): caen soretes de punta ("pieces of dung head-first")
- Spanish: llueve sapos y culebras ("toads and snakes")
- Serbian: padaju sekire ("axeAxeThe axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...
s") - Swedish: regnet står som spön i backen ("the rain stands like poles in the hill")
- Welsh: mae hi'n bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn ("old ladies and sticks")
See also
- Lluvia de PecesLluvia de PecesLluvia de Peces or Rain of Fish is a phenomenon that has been occurring for more than a century on a yearly basis in the country of Honduras.-History and background:The Rain of Fish is common in Honduran Folklore...
, (Honduras, "Rain of Fishes") - Exploding animals
- Magnolia
- The Fortean TimesFortean TimesFortean Times is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing and then I Feel Good Publishing , it is now published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. As of December 2010, its circulation was approximately 18,000...
- "It's Raining MenIt's Raining Men"It's Raining Men" is a song written by Paul Jabara and Paul Shaffer in 1979 originally for Dave Balfour's album Stars , and originally recorded by The Weather Girls in 1982...
" - Red rain in KeralaRed rain in KeralaThe Kerala red rain phenomenon was a blood rain event that occurred from July 25 to September 23, 2001, when red-coloured rain sporadically fell on the southern Indian state of Kerala. Heavy downpours occurred in which the rain was colored red, staining clothes pink. Yellow, green, and black rain...
- Star jellyStar jellyStar jelly is a gelatinous substance, which, according to folklore, is deposited on the earth during meteor showers. It is described as a translucent or grayish white gelatin which tends to evaporate shortly after having fallen...
- Cattle mutilationCattle mutilationCattle mutilation is the apparent killing and mutilation of cattle under unusual or anomalous circumstances...
- Blood rainBlood rainBlood rain or red rain is a phenomenon in which blood is perceived to fall from the sky in the form of rain. Cases have been recorded since Homer's Iliad, composed ca eighth century BC, and are widespread. Before the 17th century it was generally believed that the rain was actually blood...